Voice actor Paul Skye Lehrman took a job in 2020 for which he believed he was providing a set of one-off voice samples. Years later, he says he heard his voice narrating a YouTube video and then on a podcast — even though he had never recorded either of them.
Now, Lehrman, along with fellow voice actor Linnea Sage, is suing AI firm Lovo for allegedly commissioning them for voice projects under false pretenses in order to create and sell AI-generated versions of their voices. The Berkeley, California based tech company advertises AI-generated voice technology to be used in marketing, education and product demos.
Lehrman and Sage are suing Lovo and seeking class action status to include other people “whose voices and/or identities were stolen and used,” according to the complaint filed Thursday in the Southern District Court of New York. The complaint was first reported by the New York Times.
The voice actors’ lawsuit is just the latest in a recent string of legal actions brought against various tech companies by creatives, writers and artists who say their work was used without their permission to train AI systems that could ultimately compete with them. Such lawsuits have added to a growing wave of concerns over how the training of AI models, which requires huge swaths of data, could run afoul of copyright and intellectual property laws.
“Implicit in LOVO’s offerings to its customers is that each voice-over actor has agreed to LOVO’s terms and conditions for customers to be able to access that actor’s voice,” the complaint states. But for Lehrman and Sage and any others “who have not agreed to LOVO’s terms, the continued unauthorized use of Plaintiffs’ voices is theft of service and misappropriation.”
Lovo did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
In May 2020, Lehrman says he received a request for voice-over narrative services on the gig work website Fiverr from an account called “User25199087.” When he asked what the voice sample was for, he was told it would be used “for academic research purposes only” and that “the scripts would not be used for anything else,” according to the complaint. He was paid $1,200 for the job, the complaint states.
Two years later, Lehrman came across a YouTube video that sounded as if it had his voice narrating it, although he’d never been involved in its creation, the complaint states. Then in June 2023, Lehrman claims he heard his voice being used on a podcast about the dangers of AI technologies.
Similarly, Sage was offered a job on Fiverr in 2019 producing “test scripts for radio ads” that she was told would “not be disclosed externally,” according to the complaint. She was paid $400.
Sage says she later also discovered her voice in a YouTube video: a recording of a Lovo investor presentation demonstrating its technology.
Lehrman and Sage allege that the people who contacted them on Fiverr were Lovo employees who misrepresented what their voice samples would be used for and later sold or raised money on the back of the AI-version of their voices.
“To be clear, the product that customers purchase from LOVO is stolen property. They are voices stolen by LOVO and marketed by LOVO under false pretenses,” the complaint states.
The actors are seeking more than $5 million in damages, as well as a court order blocking Lovo from continuing the alleged use of their voices.
